If for some (frankly, inexcusable) reason you know nothing about yesterday’s Prenda smackdown resulted from the April hearing in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, these articles will bring you up to speed:

It is always sad to observe default judgments against copyright trolls’ targets. There were troublingly many such orders recently. While some are the result of a faulty or outright fraudulent service, the majority of the defaults are due to defendants’ ostrich philosophy. Alas, avoiding trolls’ harassment by burying one’s head in the sand can result in much more severe harassment by professional collection agencies. In addition, these judgments embolden trolls, i.e. create an illusion that their assault on people is legitimate. Also, these “wins,” even uncollectable, have historically been serving as instruments of coercion.

Porn troll Chris Fiore,
a male

One of such default judgments was ordered by a Pennsylvania judge J. Curtis Joyner in Malibu Media v. Brian Flanagan (PAED 13-cv-05890, troll Christopher Fiore) on 7/1/2014. The memorandum is a long and sad read, but for the purpose of this post I want to concentrate on a single disturbing detail (emphasis is mine):

In response to a third party subpoena, the internet service provider disclosed the Defendant’s wife as the owner ofthe IP address that was allegedly downloading Plaintiff’s copyrighted movies. (Amended Complaint at ¶ 26 (Doc. No. 11)).However, Plaintiff brought suit against the Defendant, not his wife, alleging that the Defendant’s wife likely did not engage in the infringing downloads. (Id. at ¶ 28). Plaintiff suspected that since Defendant resides with his wife and had the means to use the BitTorrent in the house where the infringement emanated, he was “most likely” the person to engage in the infringement. (Id.at ¶¶ 26-27, 40). Additionally, Plaintiff asserts that a majority of its’ [sic] subscribers are males, and the Defendant’s online activities, hobbies, and interest implicate he was the infringer, and not his wife (Id. at ¶¶ 28-40).

Implying that being a male somehow proves the guilt is bad enough, but there is more. Doesn’t Colette Field, X-Art/Malibu Media co-owner, state in her endless declarations that

6. Brigham and I both felt that there was a lack of adult content that was beautiful and acceptable for women and couples. We wanted to create this type of content to satisfy what we hoped was an unfulfilled demand.

7. Our goal was to create erotica that is artistic and beautiful.

8. We chose the name ‘X-Art’ to reflect our artistic aspirations, and began investing all of our available money and resources into the production of content — particularly erotic movies with high production value and a cinematic quality.

I hope everyone is enjoying this gorgeous (at least in Pennsylvania) weekend. To forget about the weekday routine, let’s learn a new dance. This dance’s steps have been borrowed from one particular docket — Malibu Media v John Doe Subscriber IP address 76.124.31.253 (PAED 13-cv-05486), let’s call it Malibu Media Foxtrot.

First, meet the instructors

Christopher P. Fiore,
Porn Copyright Troll
(X-Art / Malibu Media)

Honorable L. Felipe Restrepo,
US District Judge
(PAED)

Now, the moves!

1/17/2013: First MOTION for Extension of Time Within Which to Effectuate Service on Defendant filed by MALIBU MEDIA, LLC. (Attachments: # (1) Text of Proposed Order)(FIORE, CHRISTOPHER)

01/21/2014: ORDER THAT PLAINTIFF’S FIRST MOTION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME WITHIN WHICH IT HAS TO SERVE DEFENDANT WITH A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT IS GRANTED. PLAINTIFF SHALL HAVE UNTIL 30 DAYS AFTER THE COURT ENTERS A RULING ON THE PENDING MOTION TO QUASH TO EFFECTUATE SERVICE OF A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT ON DEFENDANT. SIGNED BY HONORABLE L. FELIPE RESTREPO ON 1/21/14. 1/23/14 ENTERED AND COPIES E-MAILED.

2/24/2014:Second MOTION for Extension of Time Within Which to Effectuate Service on Defendant filed by MALIBU MEDIA, LLC. (Attachments: # (1) Text of Proposed Order)(FIORE, CHRISTOPHER)

2/26/2014: ORDER THAT PLAINTIFF’S SECOND MOTION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME WITHIN WHICH IT HAS TO SERVE DEFENDANT WITH A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT IS GRANTED. PLAINTIFF SHALL HAVE UNTIL 3/26/14 TO EFFECTUATE SERVICE OF A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT ON DEFENDANT. SIGNED BY HONORABLE L. FELIPE RESTREPO ON 2/26/14. 2/27/14 ENTERED AND COPIES E-MAILED.

3/26/2014: Third MOTION for Extension of Time Within Which to Effectuate Service on Defendant filed by MALIBU MEDIA, LLC. (Attachments: # (1) Text of Proposed Order)(FIORE, CHRISTOPHER)

3/27/2014: ORDER THAT PLAINTIFF’S THIRD MOTION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME WITHIN WHICH IT HAS TO SERVE DEFENDANT WITH A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT IS GRANTED. PLAINTIFF SHALL HAVE UNTIL 4/25/14 TO EFFECTUATE SERVICE OF A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT ON DEFENDANT. SIGNED BY HONORABLE L. FELIPE RESTREPO ON 3/26/14. 3/27/14 ENTERED AND COPIES E-MAILED.

4/25/2014: Fourth MOTION for Extension of Time Within Which to Effectuate Service on Defendant filed by MALIBU MEDIA, LLC. (Attachments: # (1) Text of Proposed Order)(FIORE, CHRISTOPHER)

4/30/2014: ORDER THAT PLAINTIFF’S FOURTH MOTION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME WITHIN WHICH IT HAS TO SERVE DEFENDANT WITH A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT IS GRANTED. PLAINTIFF SHALL HAVE UNTIL 5/25/14 TO EFFECTUATE SERVICE OF THE SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT ON DEFENDANT. SIGNED BY HONORABLE L. FELIPE RESTREPO ON 4/30/14. 5/1/14 ENTERED AND COPIES E-MAILED.

5/27/2014: Fifth MOTION for Extension of Time Within Which to Effectuate Service on Defendant filed by MALIBU MEDIA, LLC. (Attachments: # (1) Text of Proposed Order)(FIORE, CHRISTOPHER)

5/30/2014: ORDER THAT PLAINTIFF’S FIFTH MOTION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME WITHIN WHICH IT HAS TO SERVE DEFENDANT WITH A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT IS GRANTED. PLAINTIFF SHALL HAVE UNTIL 6/24/2014 TO EFFECTUATE SERVICE OF A SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT ON DEFENDANT. SIGNED BY HONORABLE L. FELIPE RESTREPO ON 5/29/2014.5/30/2014 ENTERED AND COPIES E-MAILED.

To be continued…

The music has just started, and the fun has just begun. Apparent abuse of the court system by pornographers and the German Mafia? Who cares?! Dance!

Don’t stop me now I’m having such a good time
I’m having a ball
Don’t stop me now
If you wanna have a good time just give me a call
Don’t stop me now (‘Cause I’m having a good time)
Don’t stop me now (Yes I’m havin’ a good time)
I don’t want to stop at all

Like this:

I often play with Photoshop, making funny collages and parodies. This time my quick idea became unexpectedly popular, so I thought it would be worth to preserve my 15 minutes of Internet fame here. For posterity.

Like this:

I recently promised not to write about Prenda except for entertainment purposes, and I couldn’t miss this opportunity.

We all know that one of the three Prenda stooges (Steele, Hansmeier and Duffy) is especially entertaining. Paul Duffy, being contacted by the press regarding the fact that Prenda finally began to pay its victims, solemnly responded:

I hope you are doing well. I am devastated by the loss of Nelson Mandela and I hope you join with President Obama in remembering his legacy. He ranks with Mohandes Ghandi, Dr. King and President Kennedy in the struggle for human rights over the past 50 years. There are larger issues than the ability to steal porn… You seem like a nice guy. Thanks.

…only to later merrily celebrate Nelson Mandela’s Memorial Day on December 12, 2013:

The document embedded below describes some hilarity from the past: how our highly professional attorney avoided service 26 times in 2012:

[…]Mr. Willson and his associate rode the elevator with Mr. Duffy down to the lobby of the Daley Center. Mr. Duffy exited the building, followed by Mr. Willson and his associate. Mr. Willson called out Mr. Duffy’s first and last names, and, when Mr. Duffy turned around, Mr. Willson confirmed Mr. Duffy’s identity and handed him the summons.

Mr. Duffy tossed the summons to the ground. Later that morning, counsel’s office received a phone call from a County employee how works in the Daley Center who advised that the summons and complaint had been found on the ground outside the Daley Center.

After all this amusement, Duffy had a nerve to contest the way these events have been presented… with a straight face. Note how he states that he is licensed to practice in Massachusetts, which alone disqualifies him as one who can be perceived seriously. I also wanted to note that Duffy’s firm was involuntarily dissolved, but to be fair, this honorable achievement took place only shortly after the affidavit was filed.

Like this:

According to the Illinois Attorney’s Registration and Disciplinary Record, an infamous copyright troll John Steele is not authorized to practice law in Illinois. Voluntarily inactive:

It’s quite a radical way to avoid disbarment. Will John incarcerate himself to avoid jail?

On a serious note: inactive status does not actually mean “auto-disbarment”: if an attorney does not want to pay Bar fees, he can voluntarily temporarily suspend himself. And it is perfectly normal… unless motives are questionable… oh, well.

Lawyers who register as inactive must pay an annual fee of $105.00. Inactive status lawyers may not practice law based upon their Illinois license or hold themselves out as being so authorized. An inactive lawyer may resume active status by submitting written or online notification of the intent to do so, and by paying the balance of the fee active lawyers must pay for the registration year in which active status is resumed. Inactive lawyers are also subject to a $25.00 per month late fee if registering late.

So in theory he can reinstate himself by simply paying the outstanding balance and clicking a button. Yet in light of the current investigation, it is not likely John will be practicing in Illinois again (or anywhere else, because Illinois is the only state where he is licensed). It is clear that this is not about saving on fees. If I had to guess I’d say that’s why he did it: to be able to say “You can’t sanction me! I’m not a practicing attorney anymore!” Won’t fly, of course.

I know that the Popehat crowd is sensitive about copyright and encourage linking to their musings rather than copying wholesale (otherwise they couldn’t afford their famously posh living style resulting from the sidebar advertisement commissions). Usually I follow the recommendations, but today I’m going to copy one particular Ken White’s post in its entirety. There are two reasons for that:

The subject of this post: it discusses the event that happened yesterday to yours truly: after reading one of Prenda’s filings (by Jacques Nazaire), I was visited by a fairy who told me to write a personal message to Mr. Nazaire expressing my butthurt disappointment (you’ll understand what I mean by reading along). So I did, and I received a reply shortly.

This reply, published on Twitter, prompted Ken “Popehat” White to write a post, and, unfortunately but not surprisingly, he did it better that I would ever do. So, the same fairy told me: go ahead and copy it, all of it! It’s about you for the God’s sake!

Thus, I consider the inclusion of the entire post from the Popehat blog a fairy use.

Team Prenda Is A Classy, Classy Bunch | Popehat

It really can’t be easy to be on Team Prenda these days. Hordes of detractors scrutinize your every legal filing. Mean bloggers say embarrassing things about you. The threat of sanctions always looms. A tangled web of legal proceedings across the country complicates your efforts and constantly generates new evidence and assertions.

So, I guess I can see how a Prendarast could lose his cool on occasion.

In addition to the facial defects of the subpoenas, these subpoenas should be quashed because the “Google” and “Comcast” subpoenas are issued for the sole purpose of gathering information of third parties and the undersigned and putting them in display on such websites as “techdirt”, “dietrolldie” and “Popehat”.

Anyway, Mr. Nazaire’s gripe was banal and unsurprising — but also rudely exclusionary. How could he have forgotten the site Fight Copyright Trolls, one of the most steadfast foes of Team Prenda? The proprietor of Fight Copyright Trolls wanted to know, too. So he wrote Mr. Nazaire, and got a response. And such a response!

Dear Mr. Nazaire,

In 2:12-cv-00262-WCO Document 68 (filed 08/26/13) you wrote:

10. In addition to the facial defects of the subpoenas, these subpoenas should be quashed because the “Google” and “Comcast” subpoenas are issued for the sole purpose of gathering information of third parties and the undersigned and putting them in display on such websites as “techdirt”, “dietrolldie” and “Popehat.”

I cannot express the extent of emotional distress this paragraph caused to the undersigned. You mentioned three of the major resources that cover Prenda, but failed to include my “fightcopyrighttrolls.” FYI, while my blog is not the oldest, it has the most extensive coverage of the Prenda soap opera: if you navigate to the “Prenda” tag (http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/category/clans/prenda/), you will find 122 posts, not to mention numerous informative pages. Thus, not including “fightcopyrighttrolls” where it belongs is offensive and scandalous.

Please govern yourself accordingly and refrain from hurting my feelings in the future.

Very truly yours,

SJD

Quoth Mr. Nazaire in response:

I like your Mom. She’s a nice lady but not so good in the sack. I guess she has too much mileage on that poon.

Tsk Tsk Tsk. All worn out.

You think that you are funny, huh?

How’s that for funny?

Now, insulting somebody’s mother is a venerable rhetorical device. It can be a stylized vehicle for creativity, as in a yo’ momma competition, where it’s not actually about any real person. (The geeky ones are the best. “Yo momma so fat, her patronus is a Ding Dong.”) It can be delivered to inflame with some degree of style. (“I wrote a paragraph about your blog, SJD, but I left it on your mother’s nightstand.”) But it can also fall flat and just sound creepy and angry and needy. So it has here.

For someone who spends so much of his time angry, you would think that Mr. Nazaire would be better at it.

Poor copyright troll from Massachusetts Marvin Cable has had enough troubles recently. I wrote about his failures here, here and here, but after a while, MA judges’ rulings became so consistently and predictably anti-troll that they lost their newsworthiness.

It is possible that current Marvin Cable’s losses soon be eclipsed by a mega trouble. According to my confidential source in the IBM’s legal department, this corporate giant is mulling the possibility of suing Law Office of Marvin Cable for trademark infringement.

IBM trademarks include the famous IBM eight-bar logo and other designs and logos owned and used by IBM, as well as IBM product and service names. IBM takes great care in the development and protection of its trademarks and reserves all rights of ownership of its trademarks.

I don’t think that there is anyone on this planet who is not familiar with the iconic 3-letter logo:

Despite the difference in color, it is obvious that an outspoken fighter against the theft of intellectual property shamelessly pilfered a part of the IBM’s logo (“M”). The aggravating factor is that his law firm is a lucrative commercial enterprise, and the Lahman act’s maximum statutory fine for the willful commercial infringement is $2,000,000. According to the same source, IBM will be asking for $666,666.67: only one third of the logo was “stolen.” Additionally, IBM may demand monetary compensation for the insult caused by the terrible, amateurish, tasteless “C” next to the misappropriated yet flawless “M.”

My source does not know anything about a possible settlement offer, but he is positive that it will be just a little bit less than the cost of litigation. In addition, the inevitable demand letter will threaten to call Cable’s neighbors, parents and bar buddies — telling them that he is engaged in the dirty business of IP theft, and that because of his irresponsible (and illegal) actions children of IBM factory workers in Vietnam and Malaysia suffer from malnutrition.